The Price of Take-Off: Unveiling the Financial Journey of Private Pilot Training

Where you choose to learn to fly , how you choose to learn to fly , what you decide to learn to fly All of these things are going to have some bearing on how much it costs .

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through what it costs me and hopefully give you a few little pointers so that , when it comes to working out the costs for you , you have a better idea as to what it really does cost . The first thing you need to do before you start to learn to fly is go on a trial flight .

Go and find out if you actually like learning to fly . A trial flight is basically half an hour or an hour . I'd always go for the hour . You an instructor in a plane of your choice . Well , I say of your choice . It's down to the school .

Really , you're not going to get a trial flight in a Spitfire or a B-52 , it's going to be something simple a PA-20A , a Cessna 152 , something of that description and the idea of a trial flight is to give you some idea of what it really feels like to be in a small aircraft , which is completely different to a large , wide-bodied or something you might go on

holiday on and gives you an opportunity to play with the controls . The instructor is going to be beside you . They're going to be hovering over the controls , so you're not going to do anything that's going to damage the plane or damage yourself , but you get some idea as to what it feels like . You get to look out .

You might even get a certificate and some pictures at the end of it , and it's a great thing . The good news with a trial flight is generally the hour or so that you've actually used as a trial flight is loggable , because you had an instructor next to you , so you have just done your first hours flying . Trial flights vary in terms of cost .

In my case it was about £200 , so that was the first £200 I spent and , quite frankly , that was the start of everything . Next we have the biggest and the most expensive part of learning to fly , and that is paying for an aircraft and paying for an instructor .

Now the first thing I would say never , ever , pay up front , particularly if you're going to pay large sums of money . Flying schools are businesses and unfortunately in this day and age , businesses do fail .

So please don't pay large sums of money to a flying school , even if they're going to offer you a tiny discount and sometimes it's like five percent , because if they fail , the last thing you're going to get back is your money . So always try and be a little bit cautious . Look at what they're offering .

The first thing you've got to decide is what type of aircraft you're going to fly . The two main groups are low wings , things like a PA-28 , and high wings things like Cessnas , 152s , 172s , etc . The criteria are slightly different . One is more expensive than the other .

The PA-28s are more expensive than a Cessna generally , but it can vary depending on your school . The reason I went for PA-28s is , quite frankly , I'm a larger guy and sticking me in a 152 with an instructor and enough fuel to actually go flying was going to be quite interesting , so went with a pa-28 .

Generally when you're hiring a plane , it comes with the instructor , so you pay a single price for plane and instructor , but it does depend on the school . For me it was a fixed hourly rate and this hourly rate is based on what they call brakes on to brakes off . So as soon as the aircraft start moving , the clock starts ticking .

As soon as the aircraft stops moving at the end of the flight , that's when the clock stops . Now , generally , my school booked two hour blocks and you expected to have the aircraft for an hour in the middle . So you had half an hour to start , which was the time for the briefing .

You then had an hour flying time and then you had half an hour allocated for the debrief . But again , your school might be slightly different . All the booking went through an electronic booking system so I could book up in advance , so I knew when I was going to fly .

Instructor wise , I was allocated an instructor at the start and for most of my training I had the same instructor . Personally , I found that worked really well . You can spend a lot of time in a very small , confined area with your instructor . Get on with them . If you don't get on with your instructor , talk to them or talk to the school Change instructors .

Remember , at the end of the day , you're the one paying the money for the lessons . If you're not getting on with your instructor , that's the time to start to talk to people . Further on in your training you might find that other instructors brought in . We had mock tests . We had instructors who would sign us off for particular milestones like going solo .

Then you have an instructor at the end who's the chief flying examiner or flying examiner from the description who does the final skills test . That generally is not going to be the person who's been doing the instruction all the way through . So total-wise , I was paying £224 an hour for PA28 plus an instructor . Bear in mind Elstree is based in London .

Prices are generally higher than a lot of the other areas in the country and if you want to save money and you can then consider aircraft like the C152 , which was cheaper the minimum requirement is 45 hours . The average seems to be between 60 and 80 . So when you're budgeting for flight costs , take that into consideration .

I also have 1700 pounds of solo flight . This was from when I was doing my cross countries and my solo consolidation and this is charged at a slightly lower rate because you don't have an instructor next to you . Next , we have travel . Now my traveling time and the amount I spent on travel is actually a nominal amount .

I live about 15 to 20 minutes away from my aerodrome , which is great . It means I can jump in the car , drive to the airfield and be ready to fly . But it's something you need to consider .

If you're going to spend an hour travelling to an airfield and an hour travelling back , that's going to cost you more potentially than finding an airfield that was closer but slightly more expensive . So take travelling time into consideration and also consider whether you have to pay parking .

At the other end , some flight schools are in major international airports and parking is not going to be cheap , although a lot of these schools will actually have some deal with the airfield . So you're not going to be paying the same amount you would if you're doing the short stay car park at Heathrow .

Next , £120 for flight school membership . This covers more of the social side of the flight school . Technically , it also covers insurance for me when I'm doing solo hire and it's a yearly payment to the flight school . It also covers some of the barbecues and things like that that they do for their members . Next , we have landing fees .

Landing fees are the fee that you pay to land . Quite simple , really . Most airfields do have landing fees . The larger the airfield , the more complex the airfield , generally the more expensive . I'm lucky the flight school that I was with landing fees were incorporated into the hourly rate .

So for flying in the circuit flying at my local aerodrome I didn't pay any landing fees . However , when I to land aways that is , flying to other aerodromes and training at other aerodromes , particularly for things like doing my cross countries I had to pay a landing fee . So next in my spreadsheet is 950 pounds for exams and ground school .

I basically went to an intensive ground school for five days and managed to crack through all my exams .

I'd actually spent about three months doing book work with a set of Pooley's books , but I actually found that my ability to absorb information is much better when I actually have someone in front of me and be able to ask questions and talk about particular aspects .

There's a lot of online stuff out there now and a lot of people go to various online schools for their training .

I was just at the point where the CAA changed from old-fashioned question banks and paper exams into full online digital exams , so I had all of the new online stuff , including some very quirky questions that , quite frankly , weren't written very well and were basically meaningless , but I still managed to crack through them in the end .

Would I recommend going to ground school ? Well , for me personally , it worked really well . I did do the book learning first , so I did go to the ground school , effectively using the ground school to bring me up to speed and finish off a couple of the topics that I didn't really understand by reading Pooley's books .

I am aware that some people use ground schools to try and cram everything into a week and , quite frankly , I don't think that's doable . If you manage to pass an exam in a week without having done any background reading , is that really a good understanding of the subject ? Personally , I don't think so . Next up is £85 for the RT exam .

The RT is a practical exam for radio telephony and is done with an instructor . Moving down my spreadsheet , we're now into medical territory . Now trainee pilots have to have a medical and there's basically two types .

There's a Class 1 , medical , which is more intense and is designed for people who are going into commercial flight , is more intense and is designed for people who are going into commercial flight . So if you're intending to do your ppl and then go beyond ppl into commercial , get a class one done sooner rather than later .

If you're looking , as I was , just for ppl flying , class two is perfectly adequate . Covers everything that you need to do standard ppl flying . One thing I would suggest is get your medical done sooner rather than later . One of the problems that people sometimes find is they'll spend summers of money learning to fly . Then they decide to get their medical .

Most schools require you to have your medical done before you at least go solo . They do their medical . Something gets flagged up and they have to stop . So they've wasted all that money learning to fly .

Now they've either got to have a break because they need to sort out whatever medical has flagged up , or worst case scenario is the medical turns around and says , sorry , you're not going to be able to fly . It does happen . So get your medical done as soon as possible If you're going for commercial class one . If you're not going for commercial class two .

Something else to factor in as you get older , the medical requirements change slightly . Once you're over 50 , you now need a medical every year , and every two years you need to have an ECG . Other things to add to the list A chart . You need a chart .

A chart is the roadmap of the skies and it's something that you'll spend hours and hours and hours poring over drawing lines on . Generally , the schools can provide you with a chart . They're 18 , 19 pounds but you can buy them in places like Pooleys . Don't forget buy the chart for your area . There's three charts that cover the UK .

They get replaced every single year , so a chart is only going to last you a year . So if you're going to buy anything second hand , don't buy a second hand chart . It's probably going to be out of date .

Whilst we're on the subject of buying things , I bought a flight starter kit which was around about 245 pounds , which was basically a flight bag , a load of books , a couple of rulers , a protractor , a knee board and a few bits and pieces , and it was a good start . But there are cheaper ways of buying things .

But for me , it was a case of buying it , having it in one package and then proceeding on with my flying , coming towards the end of my spending list . And I have a headset and , yes , I bought a Bose A20 , which is probably the most expensive headset you can buy for flying . It's noise reduction . Yes , they're expensive .

I love them , as long as I remember to switch them on . They're great . It changes your flying in so much that you actually get to hear better because you're not constantly dealing with the drone of the engine in the background . You can buy cheaper headsets .

You can buy headsets that don't have automated noise reduction and most flying schools will actually allow you to hire headsets from them . So my suggestion possibly is the first two or three flights just borrow or hire the headset from the school . Then , when you're more certain that you're going to carry on training , then consider buying a headset .

When you finally have done all your training , the school will turn around to you and say congratulations , we want to put you up for your skills test Now . The skills test is something that every pilot looks forward to and possibly dreads , because it's the culmination of all your training .

Once you pass your skills test , you have your PPL and have that great little license . You're paying for the flight examiner and you're paying for the aircraft . Expect two to three hours of flying time and hopefully at the end he or she will turn around to you and go congratulations , you've passed your skills test .

You might have passed your skills test , but now you've got to fill in a whole pile of documentation and send the princely sum of £196 to the CAA and hopefully in two or three weeks they'll send you a license . A few tips here .

One , get your school to check all your paperwork , because I guarantee you'll manage to send the paperwork and something will be missing , something won't be ticked , and then you have a delay getting things back .

And the way the CAA seems to work is , if there's any possibility of something being wrong , they restart the clock and everything has to go back to the beginning , and then you have to go through the whole process again .

One little thing I will say is make sure , when you've done your RT exam , the documentation for that you send in at the same time as the documentation for your PPL .

That way you don't have to pay an additional fee to have your RT added onto your license at a later date and hopefully , if everything's well , two , two to three weeks , the CAA will send you a nice little blue wallet with your license in .

Congratulations , you're now a fully fledged pilot and now you have to spend even more money carrying on flying , but that's another subject . The total for me has come to £28,326 and a few pence , which is a lot of money , but the thing is that was spread over 14 months . I enjoyed every moment of it . Well , I enjoyed most of it , in fact .

Yeah , I did enjoy big chunks of it and other bits were hard and I was tearing my hair out , but that's the nature of learning to fly . The key is always budget for more . My adage is double what you think it is and add 50% . And if you think that 45 hours is the minimum required , 45 hours double . That's 90 hours , add 50% .

The number of hours I did to compress my PPL is quite close to that . It was within my budget . There are a few other things I haven't mentioned that sort of come into budgeting for flying . If you're doing land aways , buy your instructor a cup of tea . Maybe they might like that . Bear in mind .

Also , if you're going to travelways , buy your instructor a cup of tea . Maybe they might like that . Bear in mind . Also , if you're going to travel to and from an airfield , you are sometimes going to get to the airfield and find your lesson is cancelled . That's effectively a wasted trip . Possibly talk to your school and talk about doing ground school instead .

I also paid for a few other little extras , like I had a couple of apps that I use Sky Demon . They were down as ancillary costs . Hopefully this has given you some idea as to how much does it cost . Well , how much did it cost me ? And give you some pointers as to how much it might cost you .

I would go through everything step by step and try and work out roughly what it's going to cost you and then budget for it . One of the worst things you can do is run out of money halfway through your training .

You'll find that if you space your training out too much , you'll end up spending more time going over what you did in the last lesson and less time doing something new , which is basically going to cost you more in the long run .

I aim to try and book two flights a week , expecting at least one of them to be cancelled due to weather or due to other reasons , and it generally worked out for me , but it's always going to be down to your personal circumstances , don't forget . Everyone's situation is going to be different .

So just because I did something in a certain way and it's cost me a certain amount doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the same for

you . Biggest thing is talk to people . Get out there , explore , use the internet , go and talk to schools , go and talk to other pilots , get personal recommendations and fundamentally enjoy the journey . I hope this podcast has helped . If it has , please consider leaving a review and consider following for more episodes on my journey on how not to learn to fly .

Don't forget please do not use the internet for flight instruction . We'll only teach you how to crash . Thanks for listening and please remember be safe and have fun . Bye .